Pages

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Robert Burns kicks off spring showboating

Linden MacIntyre and the McGoogans. Yes, it sound like the name of an emerging Celtic music band. But really it is the speakers line-up for this year's Robert Burns Dinner sponsored by the Toronto St. Andrews Society. That event, slated for Jan. 23, 2015, finds Linden delivering The Immortal Memory, and Sheena and I presenting the toasts to the Lassies and the Laddies. I don't know why she gets the last word. Lots of folks keen to hear Linden, whose latest novel is called Punishment, so apparently the event is sold out.Next up: the Explorers' Club. On Feb. 13, Our Hero will entertain the Canadian chapter with a presentation called “Chasing John Franklin into the Northwest Passage.” Yes, I will draw on my own adventuring. I've just done a count, and see that our September voyage with Adventure Canada, Out of the Northwest Passage, will be our seventh. Be great to sail again with Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, not to mention certain other fun-loving rascals (you know who you are). Check out the voyage and tell 'em I sent you.But spring showboating. In March, Our Hero will spend a week as writer-in-residence at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Sheena and I still have friends and relations in that town, and we're hoping a few of them will turn out on the evening of March 25, when I'll give a public presentation called "Our Story Begins in Calgary." That's in the Lincoln Park Room at MRU. Circle the date, will you?